Human Variables
by M. D. Jensen
Summary: He doesn't want to be surprised again. LFMR, more friendship than anything else, really. Spoilers for Running Man, takes place just after that.


Disclaimer: I do not own Numb3rs.

Note: Megan has an office in this. Magically. Haha!

Note II: Written after Running Man, so they haven't had dinner yet.

_Human Variables_

Larry knocked once on Megan's office door, thought better of it, spun around, then back again. He noted, dully, that to any casual observer he would have appeared to be twirling on the spot but didn't really care. Another wave of caprice hit and he was about to face turn away again but the door opened before he could. "Larry?" Megan's pretty face peered out and Larry froze mid-circle.

"Hi, Megan… um…"

"Come in, Larry," Megan said, smiling.

"Thank you." He smiled back, mostly in relief, and followed her into her office. The shades were down along the many window-walls and the privacy was a comfort. He was feeling awkward enough as it was.

"I was hoping you'd come by," Megan said lightly, taking a seat on her desk and waving Larry to a chair. "Your message was kind of vague."

"Yes." Larry winced sheepishly, recalling the stumbling words he'd left on her answering machine. He couldn't remember them verbatim, which was probably a blessing, but the general idea was that he wanted to see her very much. In truth what he wanted to do was invite her to lunch again- a real, authentic date- but there was an even more urgent matter in his mind. He tried to elaborate, but could still feel himself fumbling over the words.

"Um, Megan. I really would like… what we did before, I had fun… I would like to have lunch with you again. But presently I have a very pressing question." That last sentence sounded just like the one he'd use to try to get a prom date. He could see now why that hadn't worked. But this time the question to which he referred wasn't actually romantic in the least. It was, in fact, so businesslike that he almost found it inappropriate to ask of her.

But it was too late for that now, because Megan was looking over at him intently and asking, "What is it?"

Larry sighed and refused to hesitate further. "You're a psychologist. I would like to learn how to read people, Megan."

Megan laughed a little, like his would-be prom date had, but her laughter was kind and bemused. "What?"

"After Ron… whoever…" Larry shook his head. "After that fiasco, I don't want to be caught off-guard again. I genuinely thought I knew, uh, who he was, you know? But obviously I had no idea. There must have been something there, and I missed it…"

"Hey, slow down, Larry." Megan shifted, leaning forward, her legs coming uncrossed and dangling down in front of her desk. "This took everybody by surprise. There is no way you could have picked up on anything."

Larry pressed his lips together dolefully. "One would think I would have realized that something was, er, off-kilter. I called him the next Charlie Eppes. The latest Calsci wunderkind. I shouldn't have been that far off base."

Megan smiled again, somewhat awkwardly. "You were obviously developing a bond with him, Larry. You probably forced yourself not to see the little things you would have noticed otherwise."

"But isn't that even more disturbing? To think that you wouldn't know someone you work with closely, or were beginning to work with…" he trailed off and looked away. "I just don't want to be in the dark again. Do you think I could learn? Could you teach me, or could I read a book or something…"

He was brought back to reality by a light touch on his hand. He looked up into Megan's face in time to see her comforting expression change to once of surprise. "Oh, wow, your hands are really cold." She smiled and enclosed one in both of hers like a nervous mother. "Do you want some coffee or something?"

"No thank you." Larry smiled humorlessly at her random comment. His hands went cold when he was upset, they always had, but there was no reason for Megan to know that because then she would know how deeply this was all disturbing him. She'd probably caught on, though.

Megan took her hands away and went back to her desk; he wished she hadn't. His skin felt even colder where her warm fingers had been. "It's not that simple. You can't just read a book and suddenly be able to read people." She cocked her head. "All you science men. You think you can make everyone into an equation." The words weren't accusatory, but Larry felt a sting anyway as he stopped to ponder this. often had he chastised Charles for not considering the human element of mathematics and of the world in general, but was he guilty of the same sterilization?

"Didn't you learn how to understand people?" He asked quietly, rubbing his arm for want of something to do with his hands.

"I've taken plenty of courses, yes. It doesn't make me a mind-reader. No one can see what someone else is hiding if that person truly, truly doesn't want them to."

"There must be something," Larry pressed, feeling increasingly desperate.

Megan should have been getting frustrated by all rights, but Larry couldn't see any signs of it. Or maybe he really was that hopeless at personal interaction.

"I don't know, Larry," she said quietly, after a long, pensive pause. "You could sign up for a course, or I could recommend some books. But I don't think you're really asking to understand people, so much as asking to know exactly what everyone's up to at any given moment. You want to avoid… getting hurt again. And you can't avoid that." She smiled sweetly but her eyes were sad. He fought away the sudden feeling of dread drowning his chest.

"See?" He said weakly. "That was what I was referring to."

Megan let out a burst of melancholy laughter. "You're not so hard to read, Larry. At least, not with this. We all want to protect ourselves. But I can't give you the ability to sense hidden motives. It doesn't work that way."

Larry sighed and tried not to slide down in his seat. It wasn't a terribly dignified pose, and Megan's eyes were trained on him intently. "I wish it did," he said, then shook his head and smiled ruefully. "I'm sorry to have interrupted you, Megan."

Megan shifted again. "You're not interrupting me. I just wish I could tell you something more helpful."

"You're very helpful." He dropped his head, winding his fingers together around one knee. "I suppose I have a bad habit of wanting the impossible."

"It's not impossible, persay," Megan assured him. "You could get better at that stuff, if you really wanted to. But I've had years of training, and I still get so much wrong…" she shook her head, looking like a ruffling, graceful cat.

"Really? I seems to me that you get this… instant read on anyone."

"Oh, no. If anything I get more confused. There are so many variables to consider, you know. I can work on cases because it's very clinical for me, plus criminal personalities tend to fit specific archetypes. But when it comes to real life interaction…" she shrugged. "I'm no better than you science types. I overanalyze."

Larry felt himself smile and realized that it was genuine, unforced, even though inside him the sadness was becoming an almost physical pain. What a strange juxtaposition. "I've just been reevaluating a lot lately," he began slowly. "I used to think I knew some people, knew a select few very well. But now I realize, I don't. Not really. Not even Charles. I thought I knew everything about him, but I don't. He won't even open up to me anymore. I kind of figured I'd always have him, at least. But now I don't think there's anyone I know perfectly."

He looked up at Megan, wondering how she would respond to such a statement, but her eyes weren't on him. She was playing absently with a roughly spherical paperweight, running her delicate fingers along the edge where the glass was cut back to form the flat base. Larry looked at her for a long moment, but she didn't raise her own gaze to meet his as usual. Eventually she murmured, "Maybe it's not our place."

"Not our place to what?"

Now she glanced up, towards the ceiling, and her eyes were haunted, so full of emotion that even he could see it. "Maybe it's not our place to truly understand anyone else. If we did, what would be the point in pursuing a relationship with them? There would be nothing else to learn."

Suddenly, inexplicably, Larry felt like crying, in the same way, but magnified, that he did when the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle fell into place and sealed the picture's fate. But then, slowly, a new feeling dawned on him, like the hope of a new puzzle, maybe even an endless one. Strange that he should find that so comforting. "Perhaps," he said quietly.

"I wish no one had to hurt, Larry," Megan said softly, her thin, gentle voice almost childlike. "I wish that no one ever got betrayed or got their heart broken. I wish that so badly." She looked absently out the window, the late afternoon light washing over her upturned face.

"Me too," was all Larry could answer.

"And I wish…" she finally looked over at him and locked her eyes with his. "That I had a better answer for you."

"It's all right," Larry assured her. "It was a silly objective."

"No, it wasn't. It was perfectly understandable. You wanted to shield yourself. Who doesn't?"

Larry nodded slowly. Who didn't, really? He thought, about Charlie and the Eppes family, his friends, his students, his sister, his own parents…

"My mother was schizophrenic," he said quietly, abruptly, then laughed in surprise that he'd actually said it aloud. But he went on: "I never knew what she was thinking. Sometimes I couldn't even tell if she was lucid. She was such a brilliant woman that often the things she said sounded crazy, even when she was in control for the moment. I was a teenager when she developed it. A few years later, they put her on drugs, and she sort of stopped talking at all." He paused and sighed, carefully, because he could feel himself growing steadily more emotional with each word. He didn't want to- he couldn't- lose control in front of Megan. He went on, though, in a near whisper, because something like this couldn't be abandoned, once begun. "I used to wish I could read minds, when I was younger, so that I could understand her. So maybe I could help. It never worked, of course. I would look at her, so intently, just praying for her to tell me what was inside her head… but I, I… I never knew. Right until the end. I never knew."

He heard Megan move, and they stood simultaneously, meeting halfway between her desk and his chair. He wrapped his arms around her waist, desperately and protectively, like the little boy he'd been and the responsible, sturdy son he'd tried to be. Megan's arms were around his neck, warm and soft. She smelled like some fresh perfume that had gone pleasantly musty in her hair. Unsure of what to do, but following some subconscious instinct, he ran his fingers in small circles across her back. At the same time, he could feel her fingers brushing against his hair. He shivered and she tightened her embrace.

They didn't pull apart for minutes. he wasn't sure what kept them together, be it romantic, platonic, of just some sense of sameness, but whatever it was it was almost tangible. It shimmered between them when they finally dropped their arms and stood close together in the sunset-lighted little room.

"You can still come by for those books, if you want," Megan murmured, her head bent and her face almost readable.

"I don't think I want the books anymore," Larry replied, shyly, but not uncomfortably. "But maybe…"

"You could come by anyway?" Megan laughed softly.

"I could do that." He smiled.

Her phone was ringing and he had a class in twenty minutes, but it was hard to walk away from a moment like that. He didn't know what to say, how to communicate his total sense of gratitude, so he settled for a simple "thank you" before making hesitantly for the door with Megan's address on a slip of paper in his pocket. She stopped him again, calling out before his hand was even on the handle.

"Thank you too," she said blushingly, when he turned around to see her. "Larry… you're better with people than you think you are sometimes."

He had to laugh at that. "Perhaps, occasionally." Megan smiled. And Larry allowed himself to hope, for one sweet moment, that maybe it all would be worth something, someday.


End file.
